Tuesday, June 2, 2009

The Life of the Dugout

On Saturday afternoon, John walked out the front door and spotted our child, Benjamin, at the end of the driveway, pants down around his ankles, taking a mighty whiz right where Caleb stands to wait for the bus. I don't think anyone saw. I do not know what was going through his head. We had a nice little talk and I don't think he'll be putting on a show for anyone anytime soon.

Speaking of shows, I took Caleb to t-ball this evening. The coaches have started this new thing where they pitch to the players three times before they pull out the tee. It is very satisfying to be the mother of the only boy who hits the ball on the first try.

In t-ball, every player get a turn at the bat each inning, so the boys spend a lot of time waiting around in the dugout (i.e. the grass next to the baseball field.) Now, Caleb takes more after me than John in terms of personality. We are a shy people, generally hanging around the outskirts of any large group waiting for someone to invite us in. So I was surprised this evening to see an extremely lively Caleb in the dugout, chatting up a storm and saying outrageous things in order to get his friends' full attention. Here are some tidbits of what I heard:

Hey! Did you guys ever eat grass?

Let's all say go Dylan go Dylan!!! (Dylan was batting.)

My brother ate a penny once! (That is true. When John asked him why he ate a penny, Ben struck a he-man pose and said, "because I'm STRONG!")

My brother likes to pee in the driveway!

Now, the way Caleb worded this statement made it sound like this was a regular occurrence in our driveway. Not so. This was the one and only incident and it has rained since then so there isn't even any evidence that it ever happened. I found myself explaining to this to the parents around me so that they would know I do not condone peeing on driveways.

After I was done rambling about my child's usual bathroom habits, I called Caleb over. He bounced toward me gleefully, oblivious to any social faux pas on his part. I asked him if he had taken a hyper-pill before we left. He replied, "A hyper-pill! What's that? I don't know what that is!!!!" And then he started bouncing in a circle making me fairly certain he had indeed taken a hyper-pill, perhaps two.

I was never the life of the dugout. I was a little bit in awe of this sudden outward display of social behavior. So I told him to calm down a bit, sent him back to his friends, and watched happily as he goofed off, cheered on his teammates, and participated in more toilet-humor conversation. A little later, he hit a pop-up into left field and everyone cheered loudly. When the game was over, we all got to drink Capri-Suns and eat Teddy Grahams in little baggies. It was a great night to be a mom.